Asia Pacific|Afghans Who Helped the U.S. Fear That Time for Visas Has Run Out

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Afghans Who Helped the U.S. Fear That Time for Visas Has Run Out

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Raiz Ahmad, left, and Mirwais, Afghan interpreters, in Kabul last month. Mr. Ahmad says his two brothers were killed in 2012 because of his work for the Army.CreditCreditMauricio Lima for The New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — Raiz Ahmad may have the saddest vantage of the United States’ failure to issue visas to thousands of Afghans who put themselves at risk by helping Americans during the war.

As an administrator for the American military’s interpreter program, Mr. Ahmad sees dozens of Afghan interpreters every day, waiting for their visas and racked by fear ahead of the military withdrawal. Some can no longer go home — the Taliban control their villages.

But his own story is among the most painful of all. In late 2012, while he was traveling home with his two brothers, insurgents opened fire on their vehicle. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds. His brothers, a doctor and an engineer, were killed.

“I was the one supporting the U.S. Army, not my brothers,” said Mr. Ahmad, who applied for his own visa in 2012. “It’s because of me they died.”

Mr. Ahmad oversees a frightened demographic of Afghans whose vulnerability is increasing at a crucial moment of uncertainty. With the Western troop withdrawal deadline looming at year’s end, and given the recent bloom of tension between Afghan and American officials at the highest levels, Afghans awaiting special immigration visas fear that their time for receiving one has run out.

American officials say that through most of the program’s history, the State Department fell behind in granting visas, and as a result, nearly half of the number once available have simply expired because they are canceled if they sit unused for two years.

Put another way, even if the government grants every single remaining visa from now until the program ends in September 2015 — an effort that would require it to approve more than three times as many visas as it has during any other year — thousands of visas have already gone to waste.

Now, about 5,000 Afghans deemed under threat will be competing for fewer than 2,300 visas, to say nothing of the hundreds coming in to start their applications every month.

“It’s as if we intentionally denied them their benefit,” said Marc Chretien, a former adviser to the commander of the coalition forces in Afghanistan. “It hasn’t been a priority until now and only under public pressure.”

After years of criticism from worried American service members and the news media, the government has stepped up pressure on the State Department to prioritize the program and streamline the byzantine application process, recently passing legislation that requires high-level oversight of the program and a series of measures to make the process less opaque.

“We are absolutely committed to granting visas to those who are eligible and who have applied for them,” said Jarrett Blanc, deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

If the government’s urgency about the program has changed, so has the political and security environment in Afghanistan, leaving many interpreters who helped Western troops and officials feeling increasingly desperate about what awaits them if the United States pulls out without them.

Mired in an acrimonious battle over President Hamid Karzai’s refusal to sign a long-term security agreement, the Obama administration has threatened to permanently withdraw all American troops, an endgame that grows more likely as the deal remains unsigned. Congress has cut aid to the nation by half for the coming year, incensed by the Afghan government’s release of detainees who have been accused of being militants.

Ahead of next month’s presidential elections, the Taliban have begun an intensified campaign of violence and disruption, and they have long threatened that Afghans who help the West do so under a death sentence.

Already the feeling of insecurity is palpable in the capital, with several marquee attacks in recent months highlighting the insurgents’ ability to strike at the heart of both Western life and the Afghan government.

Now, some of the interpreters no longer feel safe even at their mosques, where imams during Friday Prayer denounce the foreign presence and criticize the Afghans who aid it.

Amid the growing uncertainty, the demand for visas is certain to increase, and some worry that the remaining visas will not be enough.

“Our feeling is that the ceiling is not enough,” said Katherine Reisner of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, which aids Iraqis and Afghans in obtaining visas to America. “Even if you only take into account the people who are waiting and those who will be rejected, we will still need more.”

There are other shortcomings advocates hope to clear up, including a crucial difference between the program in Afghanistan and the more successful program in Iraq.

Individuals who worked for Western companies in Iraq are able to apply directly for refugee status with the American Embassy, an alternative route for visas that broadens the circle to include those who work for Western news media and nongovernmental organizations.

Most of the issues in the program were to be cleared up last year, under the comprehensive immigration reform legislation, a measure that would have also increased the number of visas available to Afghans and Iraqis to 5,000 a year.

But the United States government shutdown last fall dashed those hopes. Instead, a smaller-scale piece of legislation was slipped into the annual military spending bill, promising more generally to expedite the visa process, create more transparency and lengthen the term of the program.

The extension of the program also technically added more visas, but did nothing to the restore the thousands that are no longer valid.

Mr. Blanc, of the State Department, brushed aside concerns over a visa shortage. He said that the current thinking is that the 2,300 visas still available will be enough, and if not, lobbying for additional visas through Congress would be relatively straightforward.

But even lawmakers who support a further extension acknowledge that passing legislation in Washington these days can be a challenge no matter how much bipartisan support it has.

In the absence of congressional action, the fact remains that much of the program’s life, and many of its visas, have already expired.

Mr. Ahmad, for his part, has been the recipient of good news in recent days. After waiting nearly two years with almost no news, he received an email Monday morning saying he was almost done with the application process. He needed only to bring his medical records and passport to the embassy.

The State Department said that the impending approval for Mr. Ahmad was unrelated to queries from The New York Times last month regarding his visa application. Still, some American soldiers who have pushed for visas for their interpreters complain that the only way to succeed has been to go public with their stories.

As for Mr. Ahmad, he is hopeful for the first time since his brothers were murdered, though he refuses to believe completely that his ordeal is over.

“I feel really good,” he said, “but let’s see what happens.”

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Afghans Who Helped the U.S. Fear That Time for Visas Has Run Out. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe